November 29, 2016

State certifies election results, orders three recounts in legislative races

Hillary Clinton officially won New Mexico and its five electoral votes, after certification of results by the State Canvassing Board Tuesday.

The board also certified the need for three recounts in legislative races, one of which heads into the recount with just a nine vote advantage.

In the official results, 804,043 voters cast ballots, or 62.4 percent of the 1,289,414 voters who were registered in time to vote in the general election.

Hillary Clinton received 48.26 percent of the votes cast in the presidential race, while Republican Donald Trump received 40.04 percent. Trump, however, received the most votes in enough states to win the presidency.

Gary Johnson, a former New Mexico governor who ran as a Libertarian Party nominee, received 9.34 percent of the votes statewide, the highest percentage by a member of neither major party since Ross Perot received 16.12 percent in 1992. Jill Stein received the support of 1.24 percent of voters, and no other candidate received more than 1 percent.

In the race for Secretary of State, Democrat Maggie Toulouse Oliver defeated Republican Nora Espinoza 56.41 percent to 43.59 percent. The Secretary of State position is normally held in non-presidential years. The resignation of Dianna Duran hours before pleading guilty to multiple crimes, including felonies, related to campaign finance prompted the race to fill the final two years of the term.

In another rarity, Republican Judith Nakamura won the race for state Supreme Court. She defeated Democrat Michael Vigil 52 percent to 48 percent. The female majority state Supreme Court is now made up of four Democrats and one Republican.

Recounts

The state canvassing board ordered automatic recounts in three legislative races. Automatic recounts occur when the results of the race are within 1 percent between the top two candidates.

The third and closest race headed to a recount is between Republican incumbent David Adkins and Democratic challenger Ronnie Martinez. Adkins leads Martinez 6,976 to 6,967 in House District 29, or 50.03 percent to 49.97 percent.

Winter noted that hacking would not be possible because New Mexico’s ballots are backed up by paper ballots.

Recently, Trump asserted without evidence and falsely that three million ballots across the country were cast illegally. This echoes a claim made by conspiracy theory websites like InfoWars, which also falsely believes the terror attacks on 9/11 were an inside job and that the government created the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting that resulted in the deaths of 20 children and six adult staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

Politifact called Trump’s election claim “ridiculously illogical” and said it was “pants on fire” false.

Related

More About

Candidates for state senate filed paperwork Tuesday to run in their parties’ primaries later this year.
The filings included several contested primaries, including two Republican members of the state House running against incumbents in the state Senate and other open seat races getting multiple candidates from each party.
State Senators are only up for election every four years. Republican incumbents facing challengers in June
State Rep. David Gallegos filed paperwork to run for Senate in District 41 in southeastern New Mexico against incumbent Gregg Fulfer in the Republican primary.

New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced Wednesday a slight easing of COVID-19 restrictions, while also announcing some increased restrictions as of Saturday, May 16.
While Lujan Grisham said the state would start allowing retailers and some other businesses to open to the public with capacity limitations, she also said the new public health emergency order will require everyone in the state to wear a face and nose covering when in public spaces.
She said many businesses, with the exception of entertainment businesses like movie theaters, could open this weekend as long as they keep their capacity at 25 percent of what the fire code allows. She said those businesses must also continue to take certain precautions against spreading COVID-19.
Large retail “box” stores would have their capacity capped at 20 percent.

New Mexico was told there are no signs that Russians targeted the state’s elections systems ahead of the 2016 elections. Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver made the announcement Friday afternoon, after news broke that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security contacted the elections officials in each state and informed 21 there were attempts to breach their systems. The Associated Press reported DHS said there was no evidence any votes were affected.

Albuquerque could be the next city in the state to adopt a new way of voting in municipal elections, but a looming deadline doesn’t leave city councilors much time to make it happen. Ranked-choice voting, sometimes called instant-runoff voting, allows voters to rank their choices on a single ballot as opposed to only picking their number one candidate.

An unconventional process for a somewhat controversial medical cannabis bill provoked the ire of the House Republican floor leader Sunday afternoon.
House Minority Leader James Townsend, R-Artesia, told acting Speaker of the House Daymon Ely, D-Albuquerque, he felt like House Democrats have been changing rules for the majority's benefit.
The bill in question, SB 139, would change state law to only allow New Mexico residents to enroll in the state’s Medical Cannabis Program. The problem is, the bill is also directly tied to a state Court of Appeals case where Speaker of the House Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, represents the appellees.

Recently completed recounts in three state legislative races didn’t result in any changes to the election night winners. In the closest race, Republican state Rep. David Adkins kept his Bernalillo County seat by defeating Democrat Ronnie Martinez by just nine votes.

Join the Conversation on Twitter

Recent Posts

A day after state health officials announced the highest single-day number of COVID-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic, they announced 129 additional confirmed cases and five additional deaths related to the disease.

State Human Services Department Secretary Dr. David Scrase offered some data supporting the use of masks and social distancing to help slow the spread of COVID-19.
The use of face masks in public has become a polarizing topic among some communities as the state has loosened its restrictions on businesses, including closures, over the last week.
While cloth masks aren’t suitable for use in healthcare settings, Scrase said they are still useful at preventing the spread of the illness among the general public.

Public health orders restricting some businesses and public gatherings are slowly being lifted, but the New Mexico Supreme Court’s restrictions on eviction proceedings and limitations on civil cases in general are still in place.

Matthew Reichbach is the editor of the NM Political Report. The former founder and editor of the NM Telegram, Matthew was also a co-founder of New Mexico FBIHOP with his brother and one of the original hires at the groundbreaking website the New Mexico Independent. Matthew has covered events such as the Democratic National Convention and Netroots Nation and formerly published, “The Morning Word,” a daily political news summary for NM Telegram and the Santa Fe Reporter.